The present invention relates to an endoscope system and, more paticularly, to an endoscope system having a data communication function.
An endoscope system includes at least an endoscope, an endoscope camera and a light source device. In such an endoscope system, an endoscope, an endoscope camera, and a light source device can have data processing and data communication functions. In data communication, when data is transmitted from a transmission station to a reception station, the reception station generates a response signal when it receives the data. Then, when the transmission station receives this response signal, it can transmit next data. When this response signal is not transmitted from the reception station, the transmission station is set in a data transmission waiting state. On the other hand, the reception station is set in a reception waiting state until it receives all the data to be received. During this data communication, when noise is mixed into the data, a data error occurs, and the correct data communication cannot be performed. Meanwhile, when one of the endoscope, the endoscope camera and the light source device is not of the new type, that is, one of them has no data communication means, the response signal cannot be generated. In this case, a CPU recognizes this as a data error, resulting in a malfunction of the endoscope system.